The Mark Of Athena
by t s wolff
Summary: Third book in the Heroes of Olympus series.  I'm serious this time: I WILL UPDATE IF YOU REVIEW!  Sorry if the first chapter is kinda short...the rest'll all be very long, I promise you!  REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!
1. Chapter 1: Annabeth

_**HEROES OF OLYMPUS, Book 3:**_

**THE MARK OF ATHENA**

_By T. S. Wolff_

**Here it comes! For those of you who have NOT read The Son of Neptune: Spoiler alert! This story contains many references to things that have happened in The Son of Neptune, so there are a number of spoilers. Now, I shall ask of you one thing, and one thing only. I'm serious this time, people: I AM GOING TO UPDATE. But under one condition. I need at least seven reviews on this story or on Robert Jameson and the Seven Amulets before I update. That's EVERY TIME I UPDATE. Seven reviews per update on this or Robert Jameson, all right? Deal? Sorry if I disappointed you guys with the other stories (not updating), but I just wasn't all that interested in most of them. The ones I am SERIOUS ABOUT UPDATING FROM NOW ON are The Mark of Athena, The Sacred Stone and Robert Jameson and the Seven Amulets. The others need to wait a while.**

** Now, on with the story!**

**LEO IS FRUSTRATED. **The Seven are having troubles getting along, and Leo seems to be the only one who is making any sense at all, a very seldom-seen occurrence. Plus, he just met the girl of his dreams, but she already has two boyfriends, plus she seems to be hiding something from him.

**JASON IS PUZZLED. **Hera visited him in his dreams again and gave him a slip of paper. All it says on it is: THREE CAMPS. He can't seem to figure out what that means, though he has a pretty good guess...and he hopes more than anything it isn't correct.

**ANNABETH IS LOST. **She had fallen off the ship somewhere in between Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter. Stranded, she swam desperately towards the ship. The others tried to save her, but before she knew it the currents changed and she found herself on an island in the middle of nowhere. The ship was nowhere to be seen.

**PERCY IS IN DESPAIR. **He got on the ship, only to realize that Annabeth wasn't there. A girl named Piper told him how Annabeth had been lost in the currents about halfway to Camp Jupiter. Percy needs to stop moping, though, and fast; his dreams told him that the ship would soon be under attack.

**FRANK IS ALMOST DEAD. **The only thing that keeps him from dying is a little log that his best friend, Hazel, keeps in her coat pocket. And it's only a stump. He just found out that he can shapeshift into any animal he wants, but something's gone wrong...it's becoming harder and harder to become human again.

**I**

**ANNABETH**

BEING STRANDED ON AN ISLAND in the middle of nowhere didn't exactly give you a lot of dietary choices. It basically meant: Eat coconuts and bananas or starve. So it was too bad that Annabeth hated coconuts.

She was still trying to figure out a way to get back to the _Argo II. _Or at least a way to contact them, tell them where she was.

Of course, first she'd have to find out where she was.

She gnawed on a banana and stared at the sunset. It was beautiful, with purplish-reddish streaks and a hint of orange as the sun slowly descended to signal the end of the day and the beginning of the night. Annabeth wished she could descend into the water to signal the end of this torment and the beginning of Elysium. But no; she now was certain that she was one of the Seven in the Great Prophecy. She couldn't die yet. Besides, there was still hope that she could invent some device to contact Percy or one of the others.

Another reason why she didn't kill herself was Percy. She needed to see him again before she died. At least then she'd have something to be happy about in the Underworld.

She grabbed a pillow she had constructed out of grass and moss, lay down on it and slowly drifted off to sleep.

She dreamed of Percy, and the adventures they had had. She remembered them clearly, as if they had happened yesterday: The day she came up with his nickname, Seaweed Brain...The fight with Medusa where Grover slammed into a giant statue of a bear...Crusty's, where Percy had saved her and Grover using wit alone...

She remembered saving Percy and Tyson from the dodgeball-playing Laistrygonians...meeting Thalia for the first time...the middle-school dance where she had fallen off a cliff...the day in the Labyrinth where they kissed...

And then the dream shifted, displaying one of Annabeth's least favorite Titans. "Atlas," she muttered. She was horrified to see that he was not holding up the sky. Instead, Demeter was.

"Annabeth...help..." moaned Demeter. "Earth...enemies...you need me. Without me...the world...shall be...in constant winter."

Annabeth had only ever seen Demeter once or twice, in the Palace of the gods, but it still broke her heart to see Demeter standing there, struggling under the weight of the sky. "That's why the days are getting colder!" Atlas gloated. "My patron has freed me from the sky by forcing Demeter upon it, and now the world shall perish!"

**Annabeth's chapters are going to be kind of short. I promise you, the other chapters will be very long, but I just don't know that do do with Annabeth's chapters yet. I may edit this later and add more, but for now this is it. This is the one chapter where you don't have to review 7 times...I'll just update ASAP, to make it up to you.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here we go...you reviewed! And now it's time for:**

CHAPTER 2

LEO

LEO WASN'T EXACTLY FEELING FINE AND DANDY when the ship landed. He tried hard to hide it, but he was actually kinda nervous. After all, he knew that there was a chance, despite the video he had made, that the Romans might shoot them down. Who knew what the Romans were like? Maybe they were blood-sucking demons that sleep upside-down...no, he was thinking of vampires, which might have been a pretty good guess, Leo thought as he lay in the hammock down below. He wished he and the Hephaestus cabin had remembered to install beds. At least they put in a swimming pool.

He got up from his hammock-bed and walked over to Jason, who was staring up ahead, gazing into the water. "What's wrong?" Leo asked. He then remembered: He wasn't supposed to be the worried and cautious one. That was Piper's job. He was the one to lighten up the situations by making jokes and pulling pranks and other stuff like that. And he wanted it to stay that way.

The three of them all felt the loss of Annabeth deeply. She had been a fantastic technician, plus they all knew how she really wanted to see Percy. But they had no idea where Annabeth could be! The only likely situation was that she drowned, and none of them wanted to think that.

"Well, I guess I just can't wait to get to Camp Jupiter again," Jason replied. He continued to gaze. "But then again, there are some bad aspects to the Roman camp, too. They're very warlike, reason one. I really, really think they might shoot us down anyway. So I guess I'm a bit worried. And reason two? Octavian. Need I say more?" Leo chuckled. Jason had told him about this Octavian guy: Some really annoying son of Apollo who's horrible at fighting but great at anti-motivational speaking. Not the best guy to send on a quest. Leo hoped that Octavian wasn't one of the Seven.

They were now almost at Camp Jupiter. Leo could see all the Jupiterians: Little guys in battle armor and baggy purple tees, just like the one Jason wore. Leo wasn't exactly a fan of purple. He was glad he went to Camp Half-Blood.

And then he realized all the bows and spears they were holding (very few bows, a lot of spears) were pointed at their ship.

"HOLD FIRE!" commanded a small kid brandishing a gold scythe. He turned to us. "Graeceus! What a surprise!" He looked amused. This kid had to be Octavian. "Shall we shoot you down, or shall you give us Jason?"

A girl came running in, about 17 years old. "This is not what we've planned, Octavian!" Octavian shot her a dirty look.

"So what?" asked Octavian. "Plans can change!"

Leo was starting to hate this guy.

"Fire at your will!" commanded Octavian. "Shoot the graceus down until they give us Jason!"

Leo groaned, and turned to Jason. "Show yourself to your old friends before they kill us!"

Jason agreed, and showed his face. "I am Jason!"

The Jupiterians gasped. Octavian groaned. A short boy with sandy hair came running up, along with another boy. The second boy was bulky, strong and muscley, but with a baby face.

"I am Percy Jackson!" said the boy with sandy hair. "Frank and I have come to help you on your quest!"

"Wait a minute..." said Frank, Bulky Boy. "Where's Hazel?"

**That's a good question..one that'll have to be answered after seven more reviews!**


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